Bata in Bojnice

This article refers back to my recent post about Bojnice Spa,
which experienced the major development under the ownership of Baťa, who bought
the land and the castle in 1930. http://www.katarinazatkova.com/blog/bojnice-spa
Before that, all the land was divided between many heirs of Palfy’s family, who
were fighting with each other to increase their position and wealth. Baťa was
the only person who managed to join all ‘divided land‘ and put Bojnice on the
growth path.

Interestingly, the local museum is currently, for the first
time, running an exhibition entitled ’Baťa in Bojnice’. Although I already know
Baťa’s story relatively well, I keep being surprised by cleverness of his
ideas. The exhibition was extremely related to my work, as it explained the
story of how the Spa town develops under the ownership of a great social
entrepreneur.

Baťa was well known for his marketing strategies and so also
the Spa’s reputation increased from local to national. Soon, the interest
exceeded the Spa capacity and for some time, few guests were accommodated in
the castle.

During that time, the whole town created a closed circle
between production and consumption, using all local resources: wood as a building
material and fuel, local food for the inhabitants and Spa guests, sediments
from the river banks as brick clay,...Timber harvesting became a catalyst for
the new timber industry, which is in operation until now. ‘Baťa’s School of work‘
has been established to educate people in the working skills.

Already at that time, Baťa understood that geothermal water
can be reused for other purposes and therefore the heated glass houses with
exotic plants were erected -something what Slovakia doesn’t entirely understand
even in the 21st century.

After the presentation, Mr. Kostelník- the creator of the
exhibition shared some stories with me. Many of his relatives were Baťa’s employees
and many pictures were from their private collection. We chatted a bit about
Baťa’s urbanism in relation to my project and he said: ‘Well, if there’s someone
who would know how to resolve the situation in the location of your interest,
that would be Baťa. It’s a pity this country can’t use the potential it has.
Baťa did it excellently ‘ ...The longer I’m in Slovakia, the more I hear the
last sentence: ‘It’s a pity this
country can’t use the potential it has.‘…